The Contradiction
by Luna16
Summary: A denial, inconsistency or discrepancy. Something that contains contradictory elements. S/S.


**Title: The Contradiction**  
Author: Luna  
Timeline: Future breaking off before ATY  
Rating: PG-13 for some language  
Distribution: SD-1, FF.net, Dark Enigma, Cover Me  
Summary: A denial, inconsistency or discrepancy. Something that contains contradictory elements. S/S.  
  
A/N: This is for the SD-1 June Challenge. I just wanted to give a big thanks to Tasherie and kriz-te for betaing this for me! And as always, please leave a comment or two! They really make my day!  
  
  
**The Contradiction**  
  
  
She's gone. She gave me a pen. I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen. She used it to carve words in my arm. I still have the scars.  
  
Our game has been going on for so long that I know I will miss it. I would taunt her and she would retort with a pointed jab. Verbally or physically our matches were always challenging. I am not sure when they changed. I am not sure if they ever did. She hated me from the moment she saw me and I loved her from the moment I saw her. Are love and hate really so different?  
  
She's kicked me and stabbed me; threatened me and cursed me but I have known all along that she is really no different than I am. She could have been me. She could have been what I've become. The stretch is not so far.   
  
Perhaps if her father had not been as strong…for all the faults that she throws in his face, he saved her. Her saved her from growing up to become like me.   
  
I suppose logically then, I too could have been her. Perhaps if my father had been as forceful…but that's just foolish supposition and I'm not one to indulge in self-pity. I am what I am.   
  
But then again, so is she.  
  
…  
  
That night that I followed her into the Chinese food restaurant though, was when our relationship was acknowledged. She was there to meet her handler. It was not the first time that I saw him. He and I have a long history together. I can tell she loves him. I, on the other hand, despise him. As for how he feels, it doesn't matter. He has decided to marry another woman. I think he told her so that night. I saw them sitting in separate booths, backs to each other. Trying to be subtle. He didn't see her trying to blink away her tears. He left without looking back at her. She never glanced back at him.  
  
So I went and sat down across from her in her booth. She tried to jam a chopstick in my eye.   
  
There was a lot of pain in hers.   
  
She settled for dumping some soup on my lap and storming out. She's not so subtle with me. And I never much cared for Chinese food.  
  
She needed pain to forget her love and if I am being honest with myself, I needed her love to forget my pain. We weren't so different at all.  
  
I followed her. I cornered her in the garage. I told her she was beautiful. She called me a bastard.   
  
I was forced to agree with her.   
  
She got in her car and drove away.  
  
…  
  
I cornered her in a bank once, while she was trying to recover a safety deposit box. I held a gun to her head and told her that she was beautiful. She called me bastard and I had to agree once more. I still took the box away from her and drove away. She ended up in jail for that and Arvin Sloane was planning to have her killed. I think that her boss is more cold hearted than mine is. And my employer doesn't even possess a heart.   
  
I do not think the CIA knew what to do at the time.  
  
At least I do not suffer from bureaucracy and red tape. If I want to do something, I do it. At least my employer is flexible that way. So I got her out of jail.  
  
She asked me why.   
  
I told her that we should work together. She turned her head away in disgust.  
  
I told her she was beautiful. Tears started to form in her eyes.  
  
I kissed her. She kissed me back for a moment.   
  
Then she bit my lip. She punched me in the stomach too. I thought she was a tad ungrateful.  
  
…  
  
I followed her after she left the warehouse one night. As I said before, my employer allows me certain freedoms, especially when my interests match hers. She was crying again. She drove off in her car but she didn't go far. She stopped at the carnival grounds, which were already shut down for the night.  
  
I don't know why she went there, unless she found the sight of a closed down round-a-bout or the smell of stale cotton candy comforting. I certainly didn't. It made me think of a forgotten childhood that was as dead as the carnival lights.  
  
She heard my footsteps. She didn't even turn around. She asked me what I wanted.   
  
I had never heard her voice sound so defeated. I didn't respond. I just stood about a foot behind her until finally she turned to face me.  
  
Ironically, she took my arm and led me to the Fun House. It wasn't much work for us to hop the fence or for her to pick the lock.  
  
But the lights were off and she left them like that.  
  
She dragged me past the curved mirrors that distorted our images into people that were not us. We entered a small maze and walked around frantically until we came to a dead-end. Then she turned back to me expectantly.  
  
I threw her up against the wall and kissed her.  
  
She scratched her fingernails down my back.  
  
I pulled away and stared at her face. She was breathing hard and a few strands of her hair had escaped her simple ponytail. She left them there, hanging around her face.  
  
She told me to tell her that I loved her.  
  
So I did.  
  
I think that perhaps for a moment she believed me. And that perhaps for a moment I believed myself as well. Before I remembered who I was.  
  
Then she called me a liar and slapped me.  
  
I don't know how she could hold these contradictions of myself in her head. She knew who I was and I never claimed to be more than that. I'm the devil. She called me that herself. She knows that I'm ruthless because she's seen it for herself. Why would she then hope that I loved her?   
  
Unless, she hoped I was him.  
  
I don't know what my face looked like when that thought materialized in my brain. But she understood. She understood why I backhanded her and sent her flying across the short hallway.  
  
I don't know how I could hold these contradictions about myself in my head. I know who I am and I know who she is. Our very natures repel each other. I don't know how I could ever have hoped for anything different. I still don't understand why I even wanted to try.  
  
But now she's gone. I should have seen it coming.  
  
…  
  
I have been able to predict the moves of all my objectives in the past. But she who counted the most, I lost. To be honest though, I never thought she would leave me for good. I thought she was stronger than that. She would never let an adversary get the last jab in. Or maybe I thought she was too weak for that. I didn't think she would have the courage to leave.   
  
Either way, I never thought that she would end her own life.  
  
I should have known that was something was amiss when she attended his wedding. I could have told her it was a mistake and not only because of the security implications.   
  
But she dressed in disguise and so did I. She went as a blonde and I dressed as a member of the security detail. I laughed a great deal at the irony of it all.  
  
She cried and left the ceremony half way through.  
  
The last time I saw her was when I followed her to her car after she left the ceremony.   
  
The parking lot was empty, save for us. As always, she knew that I was there and she turned around to face me.  
  
She told me that she envied me because I was free. I remember looking at her skeptically.   
  
She elaborated by saying that one was alive, only if they were free and that she felt like a bird chained to the ground. I pulled out my pen and wrote my address on her arm. I didn't quite trust her cognitive abilities at the time.   
  
I never stopped to think why I was giving her my address until after I stepped away from her. I just knew that she needed something to hold on to. I didn't stop to think about the impossibility of a bastard like myself being able to give her anything. I am after all, the contradiction of her.  
  
I don't know what she saw in my face as I thought of that but she was looking at me hard.  
  
She pulled a pen out from her purse and wrote on my arm. It can still feel my skin burning from where she touched it.  
  
A is A, is what she wrote.   
  
I think in her own way, she meant to tell me that there are no contradictions. We are who we are. And that maybe, just maybe, I am not her contradiction. That though I may be a liar and a murderer to everyone else, I am still a human being. I have wants and desires that reflect the values that I hold. If there are no contradictions, if I really wanted her, then I could not have kissed her without acknowledging that there were things within her that I admired. And likewise for her.  
  
I'm not sure I like what that implies; for me or for her.  
  
However, if life is nothing but a contradiction, then I am a liar and a murderer and my wants and desires have no relevance to my being. In this case, it would be perfectly acceptable for me to love an angel and for her to love me back. She would not have to sully herself to think me worthy of her affections.  
  
I can deal with that thought a lot easier.  
  
I did not realize until after she left, that she hadn't written with ink. She had carved the very phrase into my arm and left the pen in my hand. I almost laughed. Almost, because it was so like her to not let me have the last word. Almost, because I do not think I can accept that phrase and all that it implies.  
  
My life has reached its cumulative contradiction now. She's dead and I'm alive. But I see her more alive now than I ever did. I see her in the wind that blows through the trees, I hear her in the clouds that block the sun from shining through the sky. She's alive and free now and I am not. Now I am hollow and dead, though air still breathes through my lips.  
  
Life must be a contradiction. If it's not, then everything that I have done up until now must be lie.   
  
For I could not love her and be the person that I am.   
  
Or the person I pretend to be.

  
  
**con·tra·dic·tion**  
  
Principle of Contradiction (Logic), the axiom or law of thought that a thing cannot be and not be at the same time, or a thing must either be or not be, or the same attribute can not at the same time be affirmed and denied of the same subject.  
  
Note: It develops itself in three specific forms, which have been called the ``Three Logical Axioms.''   
First, ``A is A.''   
Second, ``A is not Not-A''   
Third, ``Everything is either A or Not-A.''  
  
Source:  
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc. 


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